WiFi connection unstable/lost on three Radios

[SlimChances]

???

Yes. When plugged in it's powered off of the wall power while it also charges the battery. Do you mean to say that you've never actually played the Radio while it was plugged in?

I was referring to the VAP11G-300 and whether it could be connected to the power outlet on the radio when in battery mode. Never mind

[JJZolx]

I was referring to the VAP11G-300

My bad. I wasn't paying attention to the conversation.

[frankd]

I was referring to the VAP11G-300 and whether it could be connected to the power outlet on the radio when in battery mode. Never mind

It won't work on battery. The power-in of the radio is not a power-out when on battery.
If you want to be mobile, the wlanpoke script might be a solution, even if not perfect. Alternatively you can power the vonets via an USB powerbank.

[SlimChances]

Thanks
I installed the wlanpoke patch yesterday and I am getting much better reception with almost no buffering or dropouts. I have not tried the radio outside where I was having the most difficulty.I am hoping the TPLink extender I recently purchased will help

[omnium21]

I have been running several Vonets during the last couple of months (3 VAP11G-300 and 1 VAP11N-300).
The VAP11N-300 got very hot and the LEDs coulldn't be easy covered with tape (it got also hot without tape).
Today the VAP11N-300 died (probably victim to the heat).
All other three VAP11G-300 are running without problem and are not running hot.
I think the "G" version is a good option if the wlanpoke script cannot solve the dropouts. Also Vonet regularly updates the firmware and you can program the Vonets that they connect to the Access Point with the strongest signal if you have several ones.
Thus overall a good solution for Radios, however use the G version not the N version of the Vonets...

My VAP11N-300 died after less than a year of use. I didn't both trying to return it saying as I'm using it out of spec. I bought a TP-Link passthrough powerline adapter instead. It's a little bulkier at the wall socket, but it's not too bad.

Meanwhile, my power supply failed on one of my Radios and the other Radio (which has been sat on my desk unpowered for a few months) is refusing to power on. I need to debug that next. Ugh.

[Starminder]

Thanks for the help and ideas with wlanpoke.
I finally installed now after i found out how easy it is (ofter i found the extension and then found out to activate it also and waited then 24hours) Feels really snappier and more stable, less Buffering.
And since i moved the one Radio wich started to lost wifi again and again (even with greart signal from a very near Hotspot, it is now stable since 3 Days. Keep fingers crossed
Thnx

"after i found the extension and then found out to activate it also"

Umm. I installed wlanpoke. Do I need to "do" something after install besides reboot the radio?

[cb4kda]

"after i found the extension and then found out to activate it also"

Umm. I installed wlanpoke. Do I need to "do" something after install besides reboot the radio?

What you can do: make a guestnetwork with only 2.4 G, and put the radio's in this guestnetwork, if you router has 2.4 and 5 G

The Vonets VAP11G has the same problem. I have in my home an imesh system, when i am doing something on the router, often the vonets VAP11G lost his connection.
The VAP11G has another thing, i have a lot of experiencing with it, last days i found that the vonet was not on my guestnetwork, but in the other network, he had switched to it, because in the earlier day he had connected to it, when i had reset it the problems are gone with the wind, and now he is playing, and does his job perfect, not losing his connection.

[aidy_w]

Has anyone experienced and fixed a similar WiFi connection issue?

Hi, I have had similar problems. A working SqueezeBoxRadio that had been 100% reliable on a wifi link for several years and then suddenly started disconnecting and required either network repair, and more often reboot to get connectivity up again. I assumed it must have been new wifi interference out of my control. If I placed the unit directly in front of my AP. It did not happen, but when I placed it back into the position I wanted it (at some distance) it started with disconnects.

I tried with little success to use ssh on the client while this was happening and even tried saving logs to another file to try and capture what was occurring. It all proved ineffective. So finally I attached to the serial interface on the SqueezeBoxRadio and waited for disconnect.
It seems that when these disconnects occur it is not possible to simply restart the IP layer or for that matter the wpa_supplicant. Both are dependent on the the atheros wireless driver. This seems to have a bug that places it into a uni-directional state. Traffic out from the IP layer but responses do not make it to the host.
Therefore to avoid debugging the wireless code ???? I came up with a work around:
Essentially a simple ping based bidirectional forwarding detection mechanism, that regularly pings the squeeze server according to the info in the server config file, and if pings fail, it unloads the entire atheros driver, reloads again aquires a new IP and actually the higher layer (Squeezeplay) rides this out and the connection loss is invisible to the user application.

Nasty but effective. To kick off the script I modified /etc/network/udhcpc_action. This now starts an instance of my BFD.sh script every time a dhcp lease is acquired. It also looks for an instance of the script BFD.sh pid file, to ensure it does not attempt to start multiple instances each time a dhcp renew occurs. The BFD.sh script does a simple job of cleaning up its own pid files and runs continuously until a disconnect occurs. It then reloads the driver modules and then exits, waits for dhcp to acquire an IP address and is then restarted by udhcpc_action, only when IP connectivity should be re-established.

/etc/network/BFD.sh

#!/bin/sh

loop="true"

if test -f "/var/run/BFD.pid"; then
	for pr_num in $(pidof BFD.sh); do
		if [ $pr_num != $$ ]; then
			kill -9 $pr_num
		fi
	done
	rm /var/run/BFD.pid
fi
/usr/bin/logger "BFD Daemon started with PID: "$$
echo $$ > /var/run/BFD.pid

server=$(awk -F"serverInit="  '{print $2}' /etc/squeezeplay/userpath/settings/Playback.lua | awk -F"," '{print $2}' | cut -d '"' -f2)

while [ $loop == "true" ]
do
    ping -W 1 -w 10 -c 5 $server > /dev/null
    if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
      	/usr/bin/logger "Ping Bidirectional Forwarding Detection failed: Restarting wlan."
      	/etc/init.d/wlan stop
      	sleep 2
      	/etc/init.d/wlan start
      	rm /var/run/BFD.pid
      	udhcpc -R -a -p /var/run/udhcpc.eth1.pid -b --syslog -i eth1 -H SqueezeboxRadio -s /etc/network/udhcpc_action
      	#dropbear -i
      	loop="false"
    else
    	loop="true"
    fi
    	sleep 5
done

modified /etc/network/udhcpc_action

#!/bin/sh

# udhcpc script edited by Tim Riker <[email protected]>
# zcip integration idea from here: http://osdir.com/ml/network.zeroconf.workers/2005-06/msg00000.html

[ -z "$1" ] && echo "Error: should be called from udhcpc" && exit 1

RESOLV_CONF="/etc/resolv.conf"
[ -n "$broadcast" ] && BROADCAST="broadcast $broadcast"
[ -n "$subnet" ] && NETMASK="netmask $subnet"

/usr/bin/logger "udhcpc_action $interface $1 ip=$ip"

case "$1" in
	deconfig)
		killall zcip > /dev/null
		/sbin/ifconfig $interface 0.0.0.0
		;;

	fail|leasefail)
		killall zcip > /dev/null
# -v is needed to work around a bug in zcip - probably fixed in newer version
		/sbin/zcip -v $interface /etc/network/zcip_action > /dev/null &
		;;

	renew|bound|zeroconf)
		killall zcip > /dev/null
		/sbin/ifconfig $interface $ip $BROADCAST $NETMASK

		while route del default gw 0.0.0.0 dev $interface ; do
			:
		done

		if [ -n "$router" ] ; then
			metric=0
			for i in $router ; do
				route add default gw $i dev $interface metric $metric
				metric=$metric+1
			done
		else
			route add default dev $interface
		fi

		echo -n > $RESOLV_CONF
		[ -n "$domain" ] && echo search $domain >> $RESOLV_CONF
		for i in $dns ; do
			echo adding dns $i
			echo nameserver $i >> $RESOLV_CONF
		done
		if [ ! -f "/var/run/BFD.pid" ]; then
			(/etc/network/BFD.sh &) &
		fi
		;;
esac

exit 0

[Steevee28]

Hi, I have had similar problems. (...) The BFD.sh script does a simple job of cleaning up its own pid files and runs continuously until a disconnect occurs. It then reloads the driver modules and then exits, waits for dhcp to acquire an IP address and is then restarted by udhcpc_action, only when IP connectivity should be re-established.

Thank you for sharing these scripts. I have two comments:

- why using eth1? Isn't that the wired ethernet connection? I thought that eth0 is the Wifi. EDIT: you are right. One of my radios was misconfigured. eth1 is Wifi by default.
- I suggest using $(hostname) for hostname detection instead of fixing it to "SqueezeboxRadio" when calling udhcpc. (I have multiple Radios with different hostnames)

[stevedresden]

I came up with a work around:
Essentially a simple ping based bidirectional forwarding detection mechanism, that regularly pings the squeeze server according to the info in the server config file, and if pings fail, it unloads the entire atheros driver, reloads again aquires a new IP and actually the higher layer (Squeezeplay) rides this out and the connection loss is invisible to the user application.

Nice work - testing this now

Makes me wonder why they don't have the "repair network" diagnostic function on the radio do this (ie unload/reload atheros driver) - instead of whatever it does now which rarely ever works

[stevedresden]

Nice work - testing this now

Not sure why, but it was working OK until I guess it lost connection - and wouldn't reconnect
When I rebooted the radio it refused to connect at all saying it couldn't get a DHCP address from the server

So not sure what happened there - managed to set the IP manually via the radio interface and have now logged back in and reverted the udhcpc file to the factory version

[pilot000]

...

Nasty but effective. To kick off the script I modified /etc/network/udhcpc_action. This now starts an instance of my BFD.sh script every time a dhcp lease is acquired. It also looks for an instance of the script BFD.sh pid file, to ensure it does not attempt to start multiple instances each time a dhcp renew occurs. The BFD.sh script does a simple job of cleaning up its own pid files and runs continuously until a disconnect occurs. It then reloads the driver modules and then exits, waits for dhcp to acquire an IP address and is then restarted by udhcpc_action, only when IP connectivity should be re-established.

...

Excellent, thanks for sharing. This workaround works perfect on SBRadio. I had the issue, that one SBR always disconnects.

[pfcs49]

about to destroy 4 radios!! Frustrated Phil in NJ

I've read all of this thread and some others.
I've spent hours poring over and doing what little I can to get my 4 SB radios (two are UE that I think I reverted to SB spec) to work. Thank God my two Touches don't have this disease, but the radios are a huge part of my diet!

If I leave them off for a period, they won't re-connect.
I tried with and without the "patch installer" applet to no avail.
I've reverted one of each to an earlier program.

They just don't fucking work and it's making me crazy and my life unmanageable!
Does Logitech provide ANY support? The's no longer any phone help. It "seems"like I forgot a couple passwords (L media server and my squeezebox .com) and requests for a reset go unanswered although once I did get one after 18 hours that didn't work.

I appeal to the community's generosity to help me on this. I hesitate to use any abbreviations because all the one's you use I have to Google to have any insight!
I'm a retired, paralyzed foreign car mechanic and understand electronics and just a tiny bit of digital (using a eprom emulator and an editing console I was able to find the full load fueling tables in a Digifant ECM and fix huge problem with it when modifying a motor, but you folks are speaking a different language than this ole fart!)

Some of the radios are recognized on My Squeezebox.com, others on the LMS media sever, but the near universal complaint is "there is a problem connecting to Julie's (my wife) iMac"

Now I'll wait for a magician

[Redrum]

I've read all of this thread and some others.
I've spent hours poring over and doing what little I can to get my 4 SB radios (two are UE that I think I reverted to SB spec) to work. Thank God my two Touches don't have this disease, but the radios are a huge part of my diet!

If I leave them off for a period, they won't re-connect.
I tried with and without the "patch installer" applet to no avail.
I've reverted one of each to an earlier program.

They just don't fucking work and it's making me crazy and my life unmanageable!
Does Logitech provide ANY support? The's no longer any phone help. It "seems"like I forgot a couple passwords (L media server and my squeezebox .com) and requests for a reset go unanswered although once I did get one after 18 hours that didn't work.

I appeal to the community's generosity to help me on this. I hesitate to use any abbreviations because all the one's you use I have to Google to have any insight!
I'm a retired, paralyzed foreign car mechanic and understand electronics and just a tiny bit of digital (using a eprom emulator and an editing console I was able to find the full load fueling tables in a Digifant ECM and fix huge problem with it when modifying a motor, but you folks are speaking a different language than this ole fart!)

Some of the radios are recognized on My Squeezebox.com, others on the LMS media sever, but the near universal complaint is "there is a problem connecting to Julie's (my wife) iMac"

Now I'll wait for a magician

Easy Phil, there are several ole' farts here from all sorts of backgrounds.... We hear ya...

First, Logitech discontinued the squeezebox line, but continues to spend $ to keep "mysqueezebox.com" alive to continue to support hose that choose to use it over/in addition to LMS. They also host this forum, so they are good guys.

Private message Michael (mherger) for any password resets, or device registration requests (e.g. if you bought a radio second hand and its still registered to the previous owner).

Next, I am not going to be alot of help with your radios, because mine work. I would suggest to:
1) If you are running them on batteries on wifi, try having the unit plugged in.
2) if you are running them on wifi, try them on ethernet.
3) When you are running LMS, make sure you are running something current, say 7.9+, but preferably the latest (is that 8.2?)

Last suggestion, something that I have no experience with is there is a "community" firmware that was developed to address some short comings of the radios and touches. I never bothered to investigate/use (yet) because mine work good enough

Jim

[P Nelson]

I've read all of this thread and some others.
I've spent hours poring over and doing what little I can to get my 4 SB radios (two are UE that I think I reverted to SB spec) to work. Thank God my two Touches don't have this disease, but the radios are a huge part of my diet!

If I leave them off for a period, they won't re-connect.
I tried with and without the "patch installer" applet to no avail.
I've reverted one of each to an earlier program.

They just don't fucking work and it's making me crazy and my life unmanageable!
Does Logitech provide ANY support? The's no longer any phone help. It "seems"like I forgot a couple passwords (L media server and my squeezebox .com) and requests for a reset go unanswered although once I did get one after 18 hours that didn't work.

I appeal to the community's generosity to help me on this. I hesitate to use any abbreviations because all the one's you use I have to Google to have any insight!
I'm a retired, paralyzed foreign car mechanic and understand electronics and just a tiny bit of digital (using a eprom emulator and an editing console I was able to find the full load fueling tables in a Digifant ECM and fix huge problem with it when modifying a motor, but you folks are speaking a different language than this ole fart!)

Some of the radios are recognized on My Squeezebox.com, others on the LMS media sever, but the near universal complaint is "there is a problem connecting to Julie's (my wife) iMac"

Now I'll wait for a magician

I am not a magician, but I will try and help. I have been frustrated at times with the Logitech system. We need to sort what exactly is the problem, and it not clear. In case you are not aware, a Radio needs to connect to a music server which can be 1) Logitech Media Server (LMS) installed on a computer or 2) My Squeezebox.com (MySB) via the internet. To connect to the server, the Radio first needs to connect to the router which can be via wireless or ethernet. (Sorry if you already know this, but sometimes people don't.) Finally, you can switch between using LMS and MySB. Under the main menu selecting My Music will cause the Radio to look for LMS. There is an option to connect to MySB.

You said, "If I leave them off for a period, they won't re-connect." The problem could be one, or possibly a combination, of the following: 1) The Radio cannot connect to the router 2) the Radio cannot connect to MySB 3) Radio cannot connect to LMS on your computer.

The topic of this thread has been a problem with the Radios not connecting reliably with the router via Wi-Fi. If you see the red Wi-Fi symbol, then connecting to the router might be the problem. Try testing it with an ethernet connection to see if the problem goes away. If it does you might have the interference problem with Wi-Fi6 standard. (I have assumed you already checked that the Wi-Fi password is correct.)

If you know how to connect to your router, log-in to see if your Radios are connected to the local network. The first step is making sure the Radios are connected to your network. If necessary, the second step will be trying to figure out if there is a problem connecting to LMS or MySB.

Providing some additional details will also help. What version of LMS?. On the Radio go so Settings> Advance Setting> Diagnostics> General Info. What firmware version is shown? Which server do you want to use, LMS or MySB?

I hope this helps. Oh, don't destroy the Radios, you can get some money on e-bay for them!

Paul